This was a project I ve wanted to make for a long time,and when I could afford buying the figure kit from Masterbox I decided it was time to get it made.I had the helmet for several years. It is a surface find from the old Ypres battlefield, picked up by a local farmer. The top of it was long gone and it is ridden with bullet holes. On the inside of it,in the rolled edge there is still a piece of lead stuck, a real piece of history.With the WW1 diorama kit from Masterbox I had what I needed to "improve"this relic a bit.The model kit comes with a section of a trenchsystem, so I cut the lenght I needed and began cleaning up the parts. With the quality of the production this process didn`t take long and soon also the figures had been assembled and made ready for paint.In the kit comes a lot of extras,such as helmets, weapons etc, so I had an easy job making the trench a bit busy and cluttered. I wanted some S.R.D bottles and searched around a while for something I could use when I spotted the sprue from the figures. The attachment points can be cut off , have the mold line removed and voila,bottle, so easy :D For the painting I used Vallejo Model Color and made random mixes of the shads I wanted. Weathering and shading was done using oils,washes and pigments, and again I have realized that my flesh painting skills sucks and needs improving.I also had a coil of LED lights laying around and decided to just glue it in place inside the helmet so it doubles as a cozy lamp.After a few evenings of painting things were ready to be put together and final pics taken. Unfortunately the light wasn`t the best so some of the pics are a tad blurry, but I will get that re-done the next sunny day:)

Im fairly happy with the result, and the helmet sure looks impressive in the display cabinet now:)

As I have more diorama projects lined up and not room for it all I am open to offers on this one if you wish to have it displayed in your collection, just contact me with a serious offer:)

Small piece of lead stuck in the rim.

The kit used.

Playing around with trench-clutter.

After an evening of painting.

I used sand mixed with PVA for the soil.

Figures cleaned up.

Always wanted to paint this kind of camo patterns.

Figures ready to go.

The trench fitted to the helmet.

I made the sandbags from Miliput,textured them with a piece of bandage.

LED strip.

For the groundwork around the trench I used Oasis Foam soaked in PVA, and covered with the sand/PVA mix.